The current iteration of #GamerGate on Wikipedia is full of false information, misinformation, uncited allegations and blatant biased point-of-view narrating, as of the publishing of the article on February 11th, 2015. This current iteration of the article follows after the Arbitration Committee’s to remove problematic editors from editing the #GamerGate entry on Wikipedia.

History
First, it was never mentioned in Eron Gjoni’s “The Zoe Post” that Nathan Grayson reviewed Depression Quest. In fact, the word “review” is never mentioned in the post, even taken from a snapshot of the article when it appeared on August 16th, 2014, before it went viral. Nathan Grayson has, provably, written twice about Zoe Quinn’s Depression Quest in a favorable manner without disclosure at both Kotaku, on March 31st, 2014, and Rock, Paper, Shotgun on January 8th, 2014. It was proven that Grayson and Quinn were close together since January 10th, 2014 and had at least known each other since June, 2012. Grayson was also thanked in the credits of Depression Quest.

Alex Goldman from On The Media printed blatant misinformation that Grayson was allegedly accused of reviewing Depression Quest. This is not true, as indicated in the fact that the word “review” was never used in “The Zoe Post”.

Sara Kaplan from The Washington Post misinforms readers by stating that “The Zoe Post” implies that Grayson gave positive reviews for Depression Quest. This is false, as it’s been stated above.

From an archive on August 21st, 2014, Stephen Totilo states on Kotaku that…

Nathan has been accused of in some way trading positive coverage of a developer for the opportunity to sleep with her, of failing to disclose that he was in a romantic relationship with a developer he had written about, and that he’d given said developer’s game a favorable review. All of those are troubling claims that we take seriously. All would be violations of the standards we maintain. Having spoken to Nathan several times, having looked closely at the numerous messages sent our way by concerned readers and, having compared published timelines, our leadership team finds no compelling evidence that any of that is true.”

It is a lie that there is no compelling evidence that any of the allegations are true. Being thanked in the credits of a game and being involved in a personal relationship with the subject of discussion should require some form of disclosure. This was also an issue at PC Gamer, where Tyler Wilde was involved with a communications expert at Ubisoft and did not disclose this in his coverage of Ubisoft titles. Upon this issue being brought to the public light, PC Gamer issued an apology and an update to their ethics policies. Wilde has also been positioned to be recused from covering some Ubisoft products if an appearance of a conflict of interest is present. Even before the update to the PC Gamer coverage policies, Tyler Wilde did not review Ubisoft games.

According to Bob Stuart’s October 24th, 2014 article on The Telegraph, he writes…

“It was alleged that an affair with Nathan Grayson, a journalist at the website Kotaku, had led to favourable critical treatment of her game. In was later established that Grayson had only written about Quinn once, before they started a relationship, and had never reviewed Depression Quest.”

This is actually correct, and factually relevant according to the available data. However, Stuart goes on to say…

“Users from the messageboards Reddit – a sprawling series of communities – and 4chan – largely the trolls in the internet’s basement – hurled false accusations that Quinn exchanged sex for reviews.”

Citation needed.

Stuart, like other writers, makes a claim based on nothing but conjecture.

Patrick O’Rourke from O.Canada commits the same strawman fallacy, writing in an article from October 16th, 2014…

“GamerGate faithfuls still cite Zoe Quinn and Kotaku Journalist Nathan Grayson as the motivation behind their movement, despite the allegations of collusion associated with Quinn and Grayson’s relationship being (repeatedly) proven false.”

Unfortunately for O’Rourke, the allegations of a conflict of interest between Quinn and Grayson have been proven true, as indicated with the links provided at the top of this article. This makes O’Rourke’s statement false. A lack of research and fact checking enabled O’Rourke to misinform and spread biased propaganda to the O.Canada audience.

Jesse Signal from New York Magazine on October 20th, 2014 also attacks a strawman, stating…

“There was no Kotaku review of “Depression Quest,” the supposed “scandal” of journalistic impropriety that allegedly touched all this off, and fair-minded journalists will see through that line of attack right away since Quinn was receiving hate for the game long before her boyfriend posted his jeremiad.”

Not only is this statement incorrect (a conflict of interest is a scandal), but Signal’s attack against #GamerGate comes after the revelation that 40,000 people were hacked and a journalist compromised those individuals’ security by not reporting on it because they were involved in a relationship with an Electronic Arts employee. The incident involving 40,000 people was exposed back on September 13th, 2014 when a whistleblower stepped forward. Either Signal failed to fact check, showing a stark lack of professionalism before writing the diatribe, or Signal blatantly condones journalistic impropriety and potential SEC violations.

The actual entry on Wikipedia, however, reads…

“This led to false allegations from Quinn’s detractors that the relationship had resulted in Grayson publishing a positive review of the game.”

Wikipedia is parroting a false allegation from websites who have no citations for their own conjecture. This makes this entire segment factually incorrect, misinformative and disingenuous. The section also references Simon Parkin’s article from The New Yorker that never once mentions the word “review” in the article. These Wikipedia editors are now adding citations to support a biased claim with articles that don’t even have anything to do with the referenced statements in the Wikipedia entry.

How many other articles covering controversial topics are on Wikipedia, citing sources inaccurately to fit a biased, politically motivated point of view? This completely discredits Wikipedia as anything above a propaganda tool for topically motivated enthusiasts, especially in regards to culturally sensitive topics.

The Wikipedia entry for #GamerGate further states…

“Others were targeted by similar harassment, doxing, and death threats under the Gamergate umbrella.”

Citation needed.

GamerGate Hashtag

Wikipedia also states…

“Because these discussions often featured attacks, misogynistic harassment of Quinn and others, doxing, and the planning and coordination of such activities, some websites blocked users, removed posts, and created rules to prevent the discussion of such activities relating to the controversy.”

The citations to back up this claim do so based on misinformation. The Daily Dot article from Aja Romano on August 20th, 2014 treads carefully through the subject matter, but gets one critical piece of information wrong, stating…

“4Chan’s /v/ imageboard allegedly briefly hacked Quinn’s Tumblr in an attempt to get her real-life contact details, along with stealing alleged nude photos of Quinn from a private server.”

Citation needed.

The photos came from Quinn’s work as a softcore pornographic model, as recounted by her former photographer, Mallorie Nasrallah. The nude photos of Quinn are still available from the now defunct pornographic website where her photos were featured.

Romano’s article does not directly support Wikipedia’s statements, and are more nuanced than what’s described, as indicated in the section from the article that covers the censorship issue.

One of the other citations comes from Fruzsina Eördögh article’s on the Christian Science Monitor that was published on November 25th, 2014. In one segment it’s written…

“In addition to the vile language and sexism that characterized this three-month-plus online slugfest, it has also led to criminal hacks, online threats of violence, and digital smear campaigns.”

Citations needed for #GamerGate leading to “criminal hacks”.

To Wikipedia’s credit, this is not included in the section paragraph. But it’s troubling they would consider that this article is a reliable source of information.

Eördögh later states…

“Their tactics have included “doxing” victims, which refers to the act of gathering a trove of private information and spreading it around the Web.”

Citation needed.

This segment is used as information in the Wikipedia section above. However, there is no citation for this claim in the original article. This amounts to Wikipedia parroting a line without proper factual basis. This effectively makes this segment of #GamerGate’s Wikipedia entry misinformation.

The Christian Science Monitor also includes factually incorrect statements about Markus Persson leaving Mojang due to “hate” and “negative” comments. This is demonstrably false, as evidenced by Persson himself who opted to leave Mojang if to pursue smaller projects, as reported by… Mojang.

How can Wikipedia claim the Christian Science Monitor is a reliable source when the article they cite is rife with factual inaccuracies? Again, it’s either incompetence, ignorance, illiteracy or enmity on the end of Wikipedia editors.

The final article cited for this particular section of Wikipedia is from Erik Kain – an article written on Forbes on September 4th, 2014. Regarding the segment that Wikipedia refers to, Kain states…

“Battle lines were drawn. Silence from the gaming press and apparent censorship at major forums only stoked the flames. The DMCA takedown notice fanned them higher. And as Bain warned in his initial comments on the matter, the Streisand Effect began to take place.”

Kain doesn’t cite sources for the DMCA takedown, or the censorship, which was chronicled earlier on in the #GamerGate scandal with infographics to help newcomers understand. Nevertheless, none of the articles state that censorship on other gaming discussion boards or websites was enacted due to “attacks” and “doxing”.

Romano points to 4chan and specific boards on Reddit being censored, yet Wikipedia conflates this without proper citation to the reason for the censorship of the discussion on other websites. Not everyone who uses the GamerGate hashtag even knows what /r9k/ is.

That is blatant misinformation from the Wikipedia editors and misappropriation of information from cited sources.

Subsequent Harassment

An entire section about Sarkeesian is added in the Wikipedia entry for #GamerGate. It starts with…

“The harassment expanded to include renewed threats against Anita Sarkeesian, after a new episode in her series (“Women as Background, Pt. 2”) was released on August 24, 2014.”

In relation to #GamerGate, a citation is needed to clarify how harassment of Sarkeesian ties with #GamerGate as of August 24th, 2014. Kevin Dobson, the original individual that media latched onto for conflating #GamerGate with Anita Sarkeesian, has no proven ties to #GamerGate and was, for all intents and purposes, a random Twitter troll. Even mentioning the two in this statement and in the #GamerGate article is fallacious and disingenuous. Either the Wikipedia editors should provide a reliable source with an appropriate, factual link to Dobson and #GamerGate or remove it.

The entry further reads…

“Sarkeesian received rape and death threats, and leaking of her private information including her home address,”

This has no bearing on #GamerGate whatsoever. The citation for this statement includes a link to a Bloomberg article by Sheelah Kolhatkar from November 26th, 2014 that only mentions #GamerGate in passing while discussing the Zoe Quinn scandal, but does not state that Sarkeesian’s harasser has any association to #GamerGate at all.

This is misappropriation of a citation given its lack of relation to #GamerGate, and it’s being used as a genetic fallacy for agenda pushing.

The Wikipedia entry further reads…

“Wu then became the target of rape and death threats on Twitter and elsewhere. After contacting police, Wu and her husband fled their home, but said she would not allow the threats to intimidate her into silence”

This is well documented, and, despite some evidence showing that Brianna Wu was at least home during the time of which interviews were conducted, Wikipedia at least keeps it brief enough to only include what information was recorded about the event. The time between Wu claiming to “flee” from the house and returning to the house to conduct interviews has not been verified.

However, the ties to #GamerGate and the individual alleged to have sent the threats have no basis. The individual, using the Twitter handle @ChatterWhiteman, was another throwaway troll account with only a few tweets to the account, since it was only used to send threats. How or why this is conflated with #GamerGate continues to go unanswered for, and every outlet who parrots this threat in relation to #GamerGate is doing so disingenuously and either out of ignorance or for the purpose of spreading misinformation.

The entire segment following Felicia Day and the attacks both sides have received is actually documented quite well, and shows a more neutral point of view based on the provided sources.

Social And Cultural Implications

Under the social and cultural implications, the section is mostly documented with neutrality based on the provided sources. However, the section is missing a very comprehensive two-part article from Game Politics by Allum Bokhari. The article describes – based on a survey conducted with those who identified as consumers revolting under the GamerGate hashtag – where and how the statistical majority of #GamerGate aligns on the political spectrum. Any reason not to include the Game Politics article while simultaneously citing non-factual opinion pieces in the section about the “perceived” political stance of consumers using the hashtag, would be both dishonest and biased. Wiki editor ColorOfSuffering even mentions that studies should be included. Why isn’t this one?

Gamer Identity

Under the section of “Gamer Identity” on the Wikipedia entry for #GamerGate, it’s stated…

“Her initial Kickstarter to raise funds for the series and her subsequent videos have all been met with hostile commentary and harassment from some gamers, who view her discourse as threatening.”

That last clause requires a citation. Some gamers have problems with Sarkeesian, others have problems with factually misrepresented data in the Tropes Vs Women In Games videos. The inaccuracies of her videos can be viewed by a couple of differentYoutubers, some of whom are women, where they breakdown why gamers are sometimes averse to Jonathan McIntosh’s series.

The proper word for the end of that Wiki sentence is “dishonest”, not “threatening”. Unless the editor who penned that line can accurately source the appropriate use of the word beyond Vox and Gamasutra, two of the sites that were involved in the infamous “Gamers Are Dead” barrage and two sites of whom are labeled as allegedly conspiring against their own audience due to members from the Game Journo Pros having penned some of those articles at the aforementioned outlets.

Citing sources under scrutiny of impropriety while using language from those sources to make a non-neutral point creates a conflict of interest for an encyclopedia attempting to remain neutral.

Misogyny And Sexism

Under “Misogyny and Sexism” the majority of it is taken from opinion pieces used as a way to slander the consumer revolt. There are very few rebuttals to the claims of “Misogyny and Sexism”, none of which includes references to Dr. Christina Hoff Sommers, who participated in multipleinterviews about the subject matter, Cathy Young from Reason, or Adland’sDabitch, who wrote about the subject on multiple occasions and offered sound rebuttals to some of the claims of sexism and misogyny.

The entire section is composed of inordinate amounts of rancor against #GamerGate. None of this section is neutral nor does any of the section offer neutral points of commentary from those who were opposed to the opinions cited and expressed in the section.

Part of the section states…

“Targets of Gamergate supporters have overwhelmingly been women, even in situations where both men and women have both been doing things that would otherwise draw their ire.”

In the following sentence, Wikipedia cites another Simon Parkin article from The New Yorker on September 9th, 2014, where Parkin writes…

“In Quinn’s case, the fact that she was the subject of the attacks rather than the friend who wrote about her game reveals the true nature of much of the criticism: a pretense to make further harassment of women in the industry permissible.”

Within the singular context of Quinn being involved with #GamerGate, it’s understandable that Parkin wouldn’t be very educated about the subject matter of the gaming industry or previous events like Jeff Gerstmann being fired from Gamespot or the Mass Effect 3 ending debacle, where Casey Hudson and Colin Moriarity, both men, were ridiculed consistently by the gaming community. However, the Wikipedia entry citing this claim is old and irrelevant based on the amount of men who have been or has come under scrutiny of #GamerGate. Using old sources to ignore recent information shows that either the Wikipedia editor(s) aren’t very well read on the #GamerGate event or are choosing to spin a narrative.

If the Wikipedia editor(s) feel none of the sources scrutinizing the aforementioned men are worth adding to the article, they should modify the “matter of fact” wording. It is an undeniable, provable fact that men have been scrutinized to a great degree under the #GamerGate hashtag. The impression from the general public would be that many men have not been or were not put under the microscope for some form of impropriety or conflict of interest. This is blatantly false.

Debate Over Ethics In Journalism

Majority of this section attempts to debunk the issues brought up under the hashtag of #GamerGate. The Wikipedia article repeatedly quotes from sources under the subject of scrutiny, quoting Todd VanDerWerff from a Vox article published on October 31st, 2014, who wrote…

“Every single question of journalistic ethics Gamergate has brought up has either been debunked or dealt with.”

What VanDerWerff wrote would be labeled as a categorical lie. It is an easily refutable lie. If any editor had any sort of integrity VanDeWerff would either be suspended, fired or publicly reprimanded for printing an easily refutable lie.

On October 18th, 2014, the Allistair Pinsof case involving his alleged blacklisting by the Game Journo Pros was published. This was before VanDerWerff’s article was published.

On October 24th, 2014, Game Zone is the only media website to have reported on the case. This was an irrefutable act of corruption by the media and it was ignored by the media. The original article was retweeted more than 16,200 times under the GamerGate hashtag.

Pinsof’s alleged blacklisting has still never been adequately dealt with nor addressed by those involved with the unlawful incident. Dale North, the former editor-in-chief at Destructoid, did resign following the allegations being brought to the public light. This was mentioned in passing by David Auerbach on the second page of an article on Slate from October 28th, 2014.

Wikipedia also cites Chris Ip from an article published on October 24th, 2014 at the Columbia Journalism Review, where he writes…

many criticisms of press coverage by people who identify with Gamergate—about alleged collusion in video games between journalists and developers or among reporters—have been debunked.”

As mentioned, the 40,000 users being hacked has still never been truly answered for, save for words of assurance from Electronic Arts that the event wasn’t serious. Even if Ip didn’t know about the Pinsoff case, Milo Yiannopoulis from Breitbart had published multiple pieces about the Game Journo Pros back in September, much of which has been hand-waved off as “innocent discussions”. However, illegal acts are not innocent. Any journalist who stands by defending blatant collusion, cronyism or partaking in antitrust breaches for monopolizing a market cannot be regarded as a reliable or trustworthy source of truthful or factual information, as it directly violates the Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics.

If Wikipedia is citing sources from compromised journalists who adhere to, or condone collusion, blacklisting and antitrust violations, such as Chris Ip or Todd VanDerWerff, both of whom have opted not to update or rectify the misinformation and factual inaccuracies of their articles on Vox and Columbia Journalism Review as of the writing of this article, then what credibility does Wikipedia hold for being honest or trustworthy about any other subject matter?

The Wikipedia article further states…

“Similarly, the movement has been criticized for focusing primarily on women, especially female developers, and for ignoring many large-scale journalistic ethics issues.”

Total Biscuit, John Bain, also helped uncover a scandal involving a brand deal with Shadows of Mordor, which was discussed by the community and covered by Forbes, amongst other places.

Patrick Klepek was involved with an alleged blacklisting almost no other websites will touch with a 10 foot pole. The issues are relevant, the reporting and coverage of these issues are nearly absent, save for a few up-and-coming websites.

The media’s refusal to report on their own impropriety should not be used as a scapegoat to reshape and rewrite history through Wikipedia. This is dangerous territory as far as historical referencing goes.

The Wikipedia entry also cites that the discussions around DiGRA were mostly all conspiracy theory. However, Sargon of Akkad did bridge legitimate, factual connections between some members of DiGRA and the articles attacking #GamerGate. It’s a conspiracy fact regarding the connections. However, the media refuses to report on it.

GamerGate Activities

The first paragraph starts well until they quote Stuart again. Quoting unreliable sources seems to have been the goal of the Wikipedia editors to help shape the narrative in the entry. From the Daily Telegraph article…

“When members of the games industry are being driven from their houses and jobs, threatened, or abused, it makes GamerGate’s claim that it is engaged in an ethical campaign appear laughable.”

There are numerable reputable quotes to sum up the controversy surrounding #GamerGate. Why choose one that purposefully aims to do nothing more than defame? It’s neither neutral, informative nor fact-based. It’s conjecture. The unnecessary inclusion of this statement says more about the Wikipedia editor than Stuart’s article.

The Fine Young Capitalists

This section briefly covers The Fine Young Capitalists but fails to mention that gamers had to foot the bill and promote the IndieGoGo because games media refused to cover it. The Fine Young Capitalists raised more than $70,000 after being attacked multiple times for having received help from #GamerGate supporters. This was covered in the interview over on PowerGamer and APG Nation, as well as an article over on GameSided.

What’s in the entry is covered neutrally and matter of factly, however it doesn’t fully cover the topic. An omission of truth regarding the depth of the subject matter being explored (especially compared to baseless, inaccurate conjecture being on display from opinion pieces) is disinformative.

#NotYourShield

The Wikipedia entry states the following…

“Quinn released a series of logs from chat rooms and discussion boards on 4chan, which she said showed that Gamergate was manufactured by 4chan users and largely pushed by sockpuppets.”

It cites Ars Technica’s article from Casey Johnston, a former member of the Game Journo Pros, that was published on September 9th, 2014. This was proven to be an easily refutable lie on multiple fronts.

The article’s citation of the chat logs were misconstrued by Quinn. This was later used in the Game Journo Pros list to orchestrate a conspiracy theory on September 6th, 2014, indicating that #GamerGate was just one giant troll campaign designed by 4chan. The article by Casey Johnston was published following the thread in the Game Journo Pros. The original Ars Technica article was proven to contain false info when the full chat logs from 4chan were released to the public. As a verifiable and reliable source, this information was also published on The Escapist by Alexander Macris and Greg Tito for corroboration.

While Wikipedia includes The Escapist link, it’s buried under false conjecture from misinformed and misreported information by The Daily Dot and Ars Technica. You’ll even find that the current article on Ars Technica has been heavily modified from its original state when it was first published.

Additionally, they quote Arthur Chu from Salon about #NotYourShield, stating in the Wikipedia entry…

“Arthur Chu says the hashtag was an attempt to weaponize white male guilt and keep allies from supporting the people being attacked by Gamergate.”

The hashtag continues to be used by women, minorities and those from the LGBT community. Former journalist and author Oliver Campbell put together a #NotYourShield video collage to celebrate the women who support a reform in ethics under the GamerGate hashtag.

Media refusing to cover blacks, Hispanics, Asians and women using #NotYourShield, and Wikipedia editors purposefully ignoring any articles that positively address the movement such as Attack On Gaming, A Voice for Men and Cinema Blend, reeks of non-neutrality.

This either means that the Wikipedia editors are incompetent in sourcing (given that Cinema Blend is used frequently across many entries on Wikipedia but not for #GamerGate), lazy, or they are pushing a racist agenda to silence the voices of minorities and a sexist agenda to silence the diverse voices of women.

Given how thorough the #GamerGate entry is on Wikipedia, laziness seems to be out of the equation. Having racist and sexist editors dictate and change history to whitewash the opinions and diverse voices of minorities is the worst kind of position an encyclopedia can take and completely diminishes all forms of its credibility as a neutral, factual outlet for information.

Industry Response

The Wikipedia editors use this entire segment to continue to defame all of #GamerGate’s efforts, even selectively culling from The Escapists’ interviews to suit a non-neutral point of view, quoting former BioWare developer Damion Schubert, who stated in his interview…

“Games designer Damion Schubert said Gamergate was “an unprecedented catastrof**k” and that silencing critiques of games harms games developers by depriving them of feedback.”

Multiple interviews from multiple developers wrote contrary to this line of thinking, including “Xbro”, Brad Wardell from Stardock Entertainment, and Warhorse Studios’ Daniel Vavra.

Purposefully omitting information for a neutral and balanced position is propaganda pushing. For every negative statement, a positive one should be included. The interviews on the Escapists are all from the same location, so an excuse of reliable sources cannot be used.

Additionally, the Wikipedia entry ignores many of the ethical and policy updates, only stating…

“Some sites have adopted policies in response. Polygon now requires its writers to disclose contributions via Patreon, while Kotaku prohibits such contributions to game developers, except where required in order to access materials for review.”

“Where has CHS said that she supports Gamergate? She has come out swinging against “feminists taking games away from boys” but thats not the same.”

And where did any of the people in the above articles state that they are staunchly “anti-GamerGate” in their cited pieces? There are references from various sources above with comments from Dr. Christina Hoff Sommers at least offering rebuttals to claims that are cited in the Wikipedia entry. TRPoD is making disingenuous claims here, and if this is done to enforce the omission of a second point of view in order to shift away from the biased condition of the article, then it clearly shows that TRPoD is not using a neutral point of view and has an obvious agenda to push.

TRPoD makes very flippant and obviously politically motivated comments by trying to discredit the inclusion of women speaking up and on behalf of the consumer revolt, saying things like…

“I dont think highlighting Young / Bokhari’s “They are not all white guys!” is particularly relevant. Our article never makes that claim and I dont think any of the sources ever make that claim either. Its a pointless counter-argument to an argument that doesn’t exist.”

If the general public takes away from the article that #GamerGate is a harassment campaign against women, and for the most part that’s how it reads, why would an editor argue against adding more neutral points of view to the subject matter?

TRPoD further responds to someone pointing out the hypocrisy of the article with the following retort…

“”There’s a girl in our hate group – we cannot be misogynist!!!!!” ???”

…That was in response to those questioning some of the content in the “Misogyny And Antifeminism” section.

TRPoD also defended the section’s lack of addressing corruption in the games and media industry. Responding to someone asking for more point of views from the #GamerGate side addressing the corruption and ethics issue, TRPoD stated…

“only if you have reliably published sources that put the material in the context of the gamergate situation, otherwise doing so based on your own personal interpretations is not allowed- we dont do research, we report what the experts have discovered.”

There are plenty of reputable sources already linked in this article that have either gone purposefully ignored or bypassed from Wikipedia editors with an agenda to cover or mask corruption from the media.

The current article that’s reporting on what the experts have to say, according to TRPoD, would be hard-pressed to pass with anything more than a forgiving C+ as a middle-school report. It’s junky, poorly worded in many parts, poorly sourced in most sections and is heavily biased.

I’m sure various Wikipedia editors will have one excuse or another to maintain the article in the way that it is in its current state, but the only thing it does is confirm who supports, enables and abets in media corruption and who wants to fix it.

[Disclosure: I was a former member of the Game Journo Pros e-mail group]

How long would it take for us to get a full replication fork of Wikipedia fully operational over at orain.org? ‘Cause it sounds like we need one.

aRunning_Maniac

[siiiiiiiiiiiiiigh]

I’m convinced at this point… that Wikipedia page will never resemble anything close to an objective take on the GamerGate scandals and its resulting movements. I applaud those that continue to fight for it, though. Great work, Usher.

Basically I’m not expecting people to read through all of this (heck even I don’t think I could do it in one sitting) main thing was just to highlight all the bad and factually inaccurate sourcing they’ve done.

For anyone who tries to parrot any part of the Wikipedia article as legitimate, the main thing is to have an easy to navigate resource to counter the poorly depicted claims.

DynastyStar

how many “sittings” did it take for you to write it? by that, I mean your “draft”? I imagine you possibly went and edited it before you published it.

Wiki is just fundamentally flawed in some areas. It is based on the idea that people can work together even on controversal topics. This is such utter bullshit it is hard for me to understand how anyone can think it.

What they should do is allow the general editors to nominate items for inclusion. Once something has passed the notable test then if the subject matter is controversal the basic article should be done by a random group of editors. All of whom should be required to recuse themselves if they have a stake in the topic.

As an extension these neutral editors should then ride herd on the rest when the article is eventually opened to the normal anybody can edit mode. They should have to approve new changes or perhaps they could clear specific individuals to do the work. All of it based on the idea of fairness and neutrality. People involved could work on the page as long as their work is done honestly and fairly.

Wiki has worked for a long time to be accepted as reasonably accurate. What has happened with GamerGate has highlighted that a large part of their work is dangerous and should not be referenced by anybody for anything. They need to rethink how they do things.

What they should do is allow the general editors to nominate controversal items for inclusion. Once something has passed the notable test then the basic article should be done by a random group of editors. All of whom should be required to recuse themselves if they have a stake in the topic.

This, all of this.

I completely agree. Vetting the articles — especially for controversial topics — should be mandatory. This way anyone saying some kind of BS in the article can at least have it scrutinized before allowing it to go up.

What has happened with GamerGate has highlighted that a large part of their work is dangerous and should not be referenced by anybody for anything.

After seeing how terrible the GG article was on Wiki, I began to wonder just how many other topics are factually inept or misinformative? I fear for young people looking up information and using any part of Wikipedia as a database for knowledge. GG has taught me that Wikipedia is corrupt and untrustworthy.

In some areas yes. I think the idea of Wiki is brilliant and wonderful. It can work but it needs some serious work. I believe most schools have adopted the Trust but Verify approach. Meaning the students have to look at the source links and quote/use those rather than Wiki itself. This approach makes Wiki an index to information. A clunky one that is not organized to be an index but it is not that hard to work with.

People can work together on a lot of things. Minor disputes happen here and there but Wiki handles those well enough. But I have to say that reading the talk page to the GG page was tough. So much blatant hostility and dishonest conversations. And lets not forget the blind stupidity. Loads of that on both sides.

Erthwjim

Damn TRPoDen should have been banned from the subject with everyone else, he was biased from the beginning, I guess he just didn’t wear it on his sleeve like Ryulong.

I can’t actually recall it off the top of my head. I’ll have to find the source for you. If someone else could be so kind as to cite it, that would also be helpful. I thought it was posted somewhere on a forum board?

I’ve said for months that I don’t think Wiki can be fixed. There’s no political will to do so and it is incredibly slanted towards feminism and against everything else. When entire groups are given college credit for making wiki more feminist in tone and no one from wikipedia points out that is in and of itself a war against neutrality and does nothing to stand against it I don’t really see that saving it is an option.

It needs replacing, supplanting, forking. Their management is ultimately inept and uninterested in doing what’s right.

chrisredfield31

Have there been any campaigns directed towards Wikipedia? I’m sure that Wikipedia is trying to maintain a positive image regarding credibility but the GG entry shows that it can be manipulated by a group of people and therefore it puts Wikipedia as a whole into question as to whether any of it contains any worthwhile facts.

The problem is that Wiki is crowd-funded… so it’s not like you could go to traditional advertisers to get funding pulled. The most that could be done is to ensure that there are well-sourced counter-articles so when people look up a Wiki topic they see that various topics are factually inaccurate.

C G Saturation

Skimmed through your article and already saw how false the Wikipedia “article” is. Thanks for going to the trouble of listing their blatant lies. They simply don’t match up with factual history.

Mark Neil

Milo’s book should provide am ample supply for sourcing corrections to the article, once it is released.

Fenrir007

I still think the best solution we could have is to develop a plugin that would add information to a wiki page. The plugin would basically inject extra information on any controversial article letting users who have it installed be aware about the other side of the issue. The information would be curated by the plugin owners, and it would work sort of like Wikipedia itself, but it wouldn’t be as cumbersome to manage as a mirror to the wiki, and most articles wouldn’t need to be touched, since a lot of things in Wikipedia are not really controversial.

There was a plugin way back where you could leave messages or notes on websites that other users of the same plugin could see. I guess it would work kinda like that. Or maybe with pop-up boxes. I don’t know.

Yoseph Yawe

You use the term inmity in the article but the word may be enmity.

Incredible article, great job lots of work here. Just trying to lessen the distractions.

Whoops, you’re absolutely right. It’s always helpful when people catch those errs/typos/etc., that I miss. Thanks for catching that.

*Fixed.

renegadesix

Just went and looked at the Wiki page on Gamergate for the first time today 4/23/15. That has got to be the most biased, non-neutral POV article on all of Wikipedia. And they have it locked so it can’t be fixed. If anyone ever had any doubt that Wikipedia is nothing more than a bunch of SJW left wing extremists, all they have to do is look at the Gamergate article.

Wikipedia’s utterly biased and flagrant narrative choosing concerning Gamergate was the tipping point for me coming out as pro-Gamergate.

I tried very hard to stay reasonably neutral, but I found it harder and harder to do as the other side’s lies and hypocrisy sickened me more and more, and Wikipedia shilling their lies as objective truth was what not only drove me to stop editing Wikipedia completely, but I’m now an open enemy of all who are enabling those liars to pervert that project for their ideological ends.